Heard Island and McDonald Islands

Heard and McDonald Islands*
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Heard Island.jpg
Heard Island, from NASA World Wind
Type Natural
Criteria viii, ix
Reference 577
Region** Asia-Pacific
Inscription history
Inscription 1997  (21st Session)
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List.
** Region as classified by UNESCO.

The Heard Island and McDonald Islands[1] (abbreviated as HIMI[2]) are an Australian external territory and volcanic group of barren Antarctic islands, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica, approximately 4,099 km southwest of Perth,[3] 3,845 km southwest of Cape Leeuwin, Australia, 4,200 km southeast of South Africa, 3,830 km southeast of Madagascar, 1,630 km north of Antarctica, and 450 km southeast of Kerguelen.[4]

They are in the Southern Ocean according to the Australian definition but not according to the International Hydrographic Organization definition.

Discovered in the mid-19th century, they have been territories of Australia since 1947 and contain the only two active volcanoes in Australian territory, one of which, Mawson Peak, is the highest Australian mountain.

The group's overall size is 372 square kilometres (144 sq mi) in area and it has 101.9 km of coastline. The islands are uninhabited.

Contents

Geography

Map of Heard and McDonald Islands[5]
Heard Island

Satellite image of the southern tip of Heard Island. Cape Arkona is seen on the left side of the image, with Lied Glacier just above and Gotley Glacier just below. Big Ben Volcano and Mawson Peak are seen at the lower right side of the image.

Location of Heard and McDonald Islands
Geography
Archipelago Heard Island and McDonald Islands
Highest elevation 2,745 m (9,006 ft)
Highest point Mawson Peak
Country
Australia

Heard Island, by far the largest of the group, is a 368-square-kilometre (142 sq mi) bleak and mountainous island located at . Its mountains are covered in glaciers (the island is 80% covered with ice[6]) and dominated by Mawson Peak, a 2,745-metre (9,006 ft) high complex volcano which forms part of the Big Ben massif. A July 2000 satellite image from the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) Thermal Alert Team, University of Hawai'i showed an active 2-kilometre (1.2 mi) long (and 50–90 metres/164–295 feet wide) lava flow trending south-west from the summit of Big Ben.[7]

Mawson Peak is the highest Australian mountain (higher than Mount Kosciuszko), and one of only 2 active volcanoes in Australian territory, the other being McDonald Island. A long thin spit named "Elephant Spit" extends from the east of the island. There is a small group of islets and rocks about 10 kilometres (6 mi) north of Heard Island, consisting of Shag Islet, Sail Rock, Morgan Island and Black Rock. They total approximately 1.1 square kilometres (0.4 sq mi) in area.

The McDonald Islands are located 44 kilometres (27 mi) to the west of Heard Island at . The islands are small and rocky. In 1980 they consisted of McDonald Island (230 metres (750 ft) high), Flat Island (55 metres (180 ft) high) and Meyer Rock (170 metres (560 ft) high). They totalled approximately 2.5 square kilometres (1.0 sq mi) in area. Like Heard Island, they were surface exposures of the Kerguelen Plateau.

The volcano on McDonald Island, after being dormant for 75,000 years, erupted in 1992 and erupted several times since. A satellite image taken in 2004 showed recent volcanic activity had joined McDonald Island and Flat Island into one island and generally doubled the land size of the resultant island.[8] Its most recent eruption is thought to have been on 10 August 2005.[9]

Heard Island and the McDonald Islands have no ports or harbours; ships must anchor offshore. The coastline is 101.9 kilometres (63.3 mi), and a 12-nautical-mile (22 km; 14 mi) territorial sea and 200-nautical-mile (370 km; 230 mi) exclusive fishing zone are claimed.[6]

The antipode to the central Mawson Peak of Heard Island is located less than 70 kilometres (43 mi) West by south of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Climate

The islands have an Antarctic climate, tempered by their maritime setting. The weather is marked by low seasonal and daily temperature ranges, persistent and generally low cloud cover, frequent precipitation and strong winds. Monthly average temperatures at Atlas Cove (at the northwestern end of Heard Island) range from 0.0 °C (32 °F) to 4.2 °C (39.6 °F), with an average daily range of 3.7 °C (38.7 °F) to 5.2 °C (41.4 °F) in summer and −0.8 °C (31 °F) to 0.3 °C (32.5 °F) in winter. The winds are predominantly westerly and persistently strong. At Atlas Cove, monthly average wind speeds range between around 26 to 33.5 km/h (16 to 20.8 mph). Gusts in excess of 180 km/h (110 mph) have been recorded. Annual precipitation at sea level on Heard Island is in the order of 1,300 to 1,900 mm (51.2 to 74.8 in); rain or snow falls on about 3 out of 4 days.[10]

Flora and fauna

The islands are part of the Southern Indian Ocean Islands tundra ecoregion that includes several subantarctic islands. In this cold climate plant life is mainly limited to grasses, mosses and lichens. The main indigenous animals are insects along with large populations of ocean-going seabirds, seals and penguins.[11]

History

Neither island cluster had recorded visitors until the mid-1850s. Peter Kemp, a British sealer, is the first person thought to have seen the island. On 27 November 1833, he spotted it from the brig Magnet during a voyage from Kerguelen to the Antarctic and was believed to have entered the island on his 1833 chart.

An American sealer, Captain John Heard, on the ship Oriental, sighted the island on 25 November 1853, en route from Boston to Melbourne. He reported the discovery one month later and had the island named after him. Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang discovered the nearby McDonald Islands six weeks later, on 4 January 1854.

No landing was made on the islands until March 1855, when sealers from the Corinthian, led by Captain Erasmus Darwin Rogers, went ashore at a place called Oil Barrel Point. In the sealing period from 1855–1880, a number of American sealers spent a year or more on the island, living in appalling conditions in dark smelly huts, also at Oil Barrel Point. At its peak the community consisted of 200 people. By 1880, most of the seal population had been wiped out and the sealers left the island. In all, more than 100,000 barrels of elephant seal oil was produced during this period.

There are a number of wrecks in the vicinity of the islands. There is also a discarded building left from John Heard's sealing station which is situated near Atlas Cove.

The islands have been a territory of Australia since 1947, when they were transferred from the U.K.[6] The archipelago became a World Heritage Site in 1997.

Administration and economy

The islands are a territory (Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands) of Australia administered from Hobart by the Australian Antarctic Division of the Australian Department of the Environment and Water Resources. They are populated by large numbers of seal and bird species. The islands are contained within a 65,000-square-kilometre (25,000 sq mi) marine reserve and are primarily visited for research. There is no permanent human habitation.[6]

From 1947 until 1955 there were camps of visiting scientists on Heard Island (at Atlas Cove in the northwest, which was in 1969 again occupied by American scientists and expanded in 1971 by French scientists) and in 1971 on McDonald Island (at Williams Bay). Later expeditions used a temporary base at Spit Bay in the northeast, such as in 1988, 1992–93 and 2004–2005.

With no population, there is no indigenous economic activity. The islands' only natural resource is fish; the Australian government allows limited fishing in the surrounding waters.[12] Despite the lack of population, the islands have been assigned the country code HM in ISO 3166-1 (ISO 3166-2:HM) and therefore the Internet top-level domain .hm. The timezone of the islands is UTC+5.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ CIA World Factbook. Accessed 2009.01.04.
  2. ↑ Commonwealth of Australia. "About Heard Island - Human Activities". http://www.heardisland.aq/about/human_activities.html. Retrieved 2006-10-21. 
  3. ↑ Cocky Flies, Geoscience Australia
  4. ↑ http://www.distancefromto.net/
  5. ↑ CIA World Factbook. Accessed 2009.01.04.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 CIA World Factbook.
  7. ↑ Heard Island Geology
  8. ↑ Australian government image of 2004 overlain by dimensions as at 1980
  9. ↑ "Volcanic eruption causes Australian island to grow". News Online (Australian Broadcasting Commission). 2005-08-10. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1434466.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-05. 
  10. ↑ HIMI official website.
  11. ↑ http://www.worldwildlife.org/wildworld/profiles/terrestrial/an/an1104_full.html
  12. ↑ CIA World Factbook.
  13. ↑ http://www.timegenie.com/country.time/hm

Further reading

External links